Enhancing Global Security Requires Public-Private Coordination on Supply Chains

Amid the diplomatic breakthrough at the Security Council and arrival of the United Nations chemical weapons inspection team in Damascus, many observers have lost sight of two key questions about Syria: How did the regime get its chemical weapons, and how might tragedies like the Aug. 21 chemical attack on Syrian civilians be prevented in the future?

While Syria has had the technological means to manufacture chemical weapons for decades, it does not currently produce the precursors for the sarin nerve agent we now know was used outside of Damascus. Outside sources were necessary.

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This op-ed was first published in World Politics Review on October 14, 2013

Photo by UN Photo/Hend Abdel Ghany